U.S. economy being nickeled-and-pennied to death?

Is that the dumbest thing you ever heard? Check this out: It also costs 2.4 cents to make each penny.

President Obama did promise hope and change. Hmmm. Anyway, he now wants the U.S. Treasury Department to figure out a cheaper way to make pennies and nickels, in addition to his effort to get rid of $1 coins. He spells it out in his budget, summarized by AP:

Treasury is also seeking to save money … by seeking legislation to allow the Treasury secretary to change the composition of coins to more cost-effective materials. …

Copper pennies are actually almost entirely zinc, with a 2.5 percent copper coating. Nickels, on the other hand, are mostly copper and only about a quarter nickel. (If this isn’t government thinking, I don’t know what is.)

The Mint will need some time to research the best alternatives, according to administration documents.

Still, the Treasury will have a hard time making pennies pay for themselves, according to CNN Money’s Chris Isidore. As he notes, “the administrative cost of minting 4.3 billion pennies costs almost a half-cent per coin by itself, leaving precious little room to make a penny for less than a cent, no matter the raw material used.”

So what is the cheapest and best material we should we make pennies from? Wood? Recycled aluminum? Plugged nickels? Give us your suggestions in the comments.